Charted: Domesticity Stateside
by The General G of K
Summary: Or, a few times Nate and Elena had this whole domestic thing down to a science, and one time they were totally out of their element. [Post Canon][No spoilers for U4]
**Charted: Domesticity Stateside**

 _By:_ The General

 **Pairings:** Nate/Elena; Cutter/Chloe  
 **Disclaimer:** If I owned any of this, I could hire people to write my fics for me.  
 **Description:** Or, a few times Elena and Nate had this whole domestic thing down to a science. And one time they were totally out of their element.  
 **Rating:** PG-13 at the worst. Insist on reading this with your parents reading over your shoulder, while you explain fanfiction to them.  
 **Disclosure:** So _A Thief's End_ comes out today (which I sadly have NOT played yet), and regardless of how things turn out with this game, I know I'm going to be an emotional wreck. I've been working on this super long-winded _Uncharted_ epic that was supposed to document how things went for Nate/Elena + Adventure Fam post U3. But I kind of hit a wall with it, and it may see the light of day some day, but today is not that day. And I just have a lot of feelings, and I NEED to have a happily ever after for these characters, even if I have to write it myself. The culmination of my inability to reach deadlines and my need to share my _Uncharted_ feels resulted in this. I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS (BAR) FRANCHISE!

 _ **i.**_

Their wedding is a small, inconsequential affair.

Late afternoon, on a Tuesday in May, one year after they leave Nepal, and about six weeks after they've filled out the proper paperwork and paid the required licensing fees, Nate and Elena head to the Polk County Courthouse to meet the justice of the peace that will be marrying them.

Sully tags along, bitching the entire time about how he could have easily gotten ordained online through a less than reputable source and done the whole damn thing himself. "And with that kind of poetic flair," Nate smirks, pulling into an open parking spot, "I can't believe we turned you down."

They get out of the car and walk into the building, Elena's hand in Nate's, Sully following close behind. The woman at the front desk tells them where they need to go, and they follow her directions exactly—except for one errant left turn when they have to double back—to a nondescript conference room, where the most prominent decorations are the U.S. and Florida state flags behind a podium.

Similarly, the justice presiding over their ceremony is just as nondescript, and he greets them genially before launching into the ceremony without much flourish or instruction. Nate focuses all of his attention on Elena. She's wearing a light purple dress she had originally bought for a work event and a pair of sandals he can't recall her ever wearing before. Her hair is half up, half down, and when she catches him looking at her, she winks at him.

Nate wipes his palms on his pants and lets out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding as the justice continues speaking. Before he can second guess himself, he hears himself say, "I do" shortly before Elena does, and the next thing he knows, they're both grinning before he cups her face to kiss her. They did it. He and Elena are married.

Sully let's out a fanatical and undignified whoop of celebration, while the justice bids them farewell. There's a certain level of cliché associated with it, but Nate feels indescribably _happy_ in that moment as he holds Elena's—his _wife's_ —hand.

 _ **ii**_ **.**

The moment is interrupted when, shortly after the justice leaves, the door bursts open, revealing Chloe and a stocky, bald man he thinks matches the description of a guy she referred to as…Clarence? No, Charlie.

"Did we miss it?" Chloe blurts, sounding winded, as if she ran all the way here. "Did we miss the ceremony?"

She's dressed to the nines in heels and a red dress, and of all things, a feathered fascinator to match on her head. Charlie's in a three-piece suit. They look ridiculous.

"I—" Elena begins, both unable to speak and unable to stop the grin that's spreading on her face.

"How did you even find us?" Nate steps in, sounding equal parts impressed and annoyed. "You weren't invited."

Chloe rolls her eyes. "Well, obviously, yes, which we'll discuss later" she agrees, not sounding offended by the notion, "but I have my sources. You both know as well as I do that I wouldn't miss this for the world."

Elena's eyes sparkle and her voice breaks. "Chloe…"

"C'mon." Sully says, holding his arm out for Elena. She obliges. "Celebratory drinks for the newlyweds! Nate's buyin'."

As they file out of the room, Charlie wraps his arm around Nate, a complete stranger to him at this point, and says, "It's the least you can do, mate."

 _ **iii.**_

The permanent move to Florida after they come home from Yemen really only affects Nate's career, not so much Elena's. She's still operating as a foreign correspondent for WFTV ABC 9, the affiliate station in Orlando, while Nate tries to find gainful employment that does _not_ involve globe trekking and smuggling weapons into countries with rare antiquities.

The job search is put on hold one night when Elena drags him (and forces herself) to a late night work event, honoring journalistic accomplishments in the last year. She's being honored for her coverage of the underground antiquity market (no, the irony does not escape her), and even though she would like nothing more than to cuddle up with Nate and watch a movie at home while they heat up a frozen pizza, she convinces both of them to go.

Elena finds herself among a group of her colleagues, sharing stories of the job, laughing politely at the parts she's supposed to. She cranes her neck to try to find Nate and spots him over by the open bar grabbing drinks for the two of them. He's dressed in a navy blue suit (no tie of course), and she's wearing the dress she was married in for its original purpose. When he catches her gaze, he wiggles his eyebrows at her, and she has to stifle her laughter behind a cough. He situates himself next to her, his hand on the small of her back, as he passes her a drink. She smiles to herself.

"…Alyssa hates it though," Gary, who she thinks works in editing, admits. He has a goatee and a sick child at home that he mentioned earlier in the evening. "Our schedules rarely mesh, with her teaching and me working a lot of nights. Sometimes it's really tough to try to work around all of it."

"I hear that," another of Elena's colleagues, Annette in production, agrees.

Gary catches Nate's gaze as Nate is nodding in agreement and asks, "What about you…Nate, is it? What do you do for a living?"

Nate goes rigid, the hand on her back flexing involuntarily. His eyes briefly meet hers, as though searching for some kind of answer, before he blurts, "I'm a, uh…police sketch artist."

This time, Elena's cough is real, but it's because she chokes on her drink.

 _ **iv.**_

"A _police sketch artist?"_

Nate laughs, the sound mostly carried away by the wind and the top down on the Jeep as they take I-4 back home. "I know, I panicked!"

"Yeah, but a _police sketch artist_?" Elena repeats in between laughter. "Something that can be so easily fact checked? By a group of _journalists_?"

Before answering her, Nate notices her shivering slightly. He shrugs off his suit jacket and gives it to her. She dons it thankfully. It smells like him.

"It was the only thing I could think of," he defends himself, still smiling. "Besides, y'know, an international smuggler."

Elena nods thoughtfully. "It would certainly put your drawling skills to good use."

"Exactly." He wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him, kissing the top of her head.

 _ **v.**_

"Nate! Elena! I brought—whoa!"

Initially, Sully had planned to show up early the next day to help prepare food for the big dinner, but he thought he should bring a couple other side dishes, and maybe if they got started the day before, it wouldn't be such a mad rush tomorrow. He never figures he'll be rewarded for his selflessness with the scarring image of his adopted son's naked backside. But that's what he gets, and when he asks what is wrong with their bedroom, Nate gallantly shields Elena with his body demanding Sully get the hell out while giving him even more of an eyeful. And that's the story of how Sully accidentally walks in on Nate and Elena in a physically compromising situation the day before Thanksgiving.

 _ **vi.**_

Six hours.

They had been trying to build a TV storage hutch for the last _six hours._

"I don't understand why this won't…go… _together_ ," Nate growls, punctuating the last three words with a hammer strike to the protruding nail in one of the white boards.

On the floor, surrounding him, are all of the pieces (wood planks and connectors) for a piece called _Liatorp_ , which Nate is convinced means "Spawn of Satan" in Swedish.

"I mean, we've got all the damn pieces, and I sure as hell have all the tools," he says gesturing to Elena's toolkit.

"I know, it doesn't make sense," Elena agrees, sinking to the floor beside him and rubbing his back in comfort.

Nate's head sinks between his propped up knees. They are silent for a moment. "I once discovered a U-boat in the Amazon jungle."

Elena has to hold back her instinct to laugh. "I know," she claims, continuing to rub his back.

"I discovered Shambhala and _lived_ to tell the tale," he laments pathetically.

"I know."

"I wandered the Rub' al Khali for three days after surviving a plane crash by safely floating to the ground on a damn _wooden box_."

"I know, Nate."

When he resumes hammering the protruding nail, and the wood splits because of it, they both agree to scrap the whole project and put it out with the rest of the trash that Thursday. Elena can't stop laughing, much to Nate's annoyance.

 _ **vii.**_

"Yeah, but I'm telling you, I got these off a guy in Myanmar. He owed me a favor," Sully explains to Charlie and Chloe by way of not fully explaining anything. He takes his sunglasses off only to clean away a smudge with the hem of his shirt before placing them back on his face. "They're much better than anything we've got stateside."

Nate glances over his shoulder, careful not to take his eyes off the grill. "So you're dabbling in firework smuggling now, Sully? I'm both elated and concerned."

"Hey," Sully barks with a grin, "less yapping and more grilling, kid."

Nate turns his attention back to the grill until he's once again distracted by Elena coming through the sliding glass door into the backyard. She's wearing jean shorts and an American flag t-shirt. In one hand is a pitcher of iced tea, in the other is a six-pack to replace the dwindling supply in the cooler. She kisses him on the cheek before placing the pitcher and six-pack on the table. "If my burger is dry or charred beyond repair, I will not be a happy camper, Nate," she says threateningly.

Nate's forcefully reminded of a video he once saw on the internet of a baby lion cub roar, but he doesn't say anything. Just smiles and dutifully returns to his job of making sure nothing gets burned or lit on fire.

"I still think this is downright disrespectful," Charlie contributes. They set up a game of cornhole, or beanbag toss, earlier in the day, which he and Chloe are currently playing. He's losing by two. "Inviting over your British guests to celebrate American independence, I mean."

Chloe snorts from behind her sunglasses. Her beanbag lands directly in the hole. "Speak for yourself," she chides. "I'm Australian."

Charlie frowns before tossing his own beanbag. It hits the board, but slides off the back. "You still print the Queen on your money, love," he points out condescendingly. "Essentially the same thing."

Having hit a nerve, Chloe bristles and she fires back, "It is _not_ the same thing. Australia is—"

"Hey, lovebirds, why don't you quit fighting and put some of that energy into bringing the food outside?" Nate suggests. He gestures to Sully to grab him a beer, which the older man does, grudgingly.

Chloe rolls her eyes—or at least, Nate thinks she does; it's hard to tell with the sunglasses—before leaving the beanbags and dragging Charlie with her to go inside. "Ugh, you used to be far less smug and superior before you were happily married. Elena," she adds, "you are, in every single sense, a saint for putting up with his rubbish."

"C'mon, Bright Eyes," Charlie calls from inside the house. He leaves the screen door open, which Nate just knows is going to make his energy bill go through the roof with this kind of summer heat. "Stop mucking about and give me a hand, would you?"

With the two of them gone, Elena sidles up to him, a bottle opener in hand. Effortlessly, she removes both caps before taking a sip from her own bottle. She wraps her arm around Nate's waist, and he subconsciously pulls her in closer.

"She's right you know." Elena's beaming up at him, and while Nate knows she's joking, he's forcefully reminded of the in between years when Elena really _was_ a saint for sticking with him up until the separation, and even afterward, allowing him to work out his own personal issues and forgiving him at the end of all of it.

Nate makes a show of considering what she had said. "I don't know, Elena. Maybe _I'm_ the saint. You do hog the covers."

"Yeah, but you still love me," Elena claims confidently before rising up on her toes and kissing him. She tastes like beer and home.

"Hey, hey, you two," Sully interrupts from his lounge chair. It takes him a significant effort, but he gets up from the chair and walks over to Chloe and Charlie, who are approaching with food. "Elena, stop distracting him. Nate, focus on not burning the house down. I'm starving here, and I can't afford any setbacks due to negligence."

Nate just rolls his eyes and laughs before switching the gas grill off. He starts loading burgers and hot dogs on to a serving plate. "Sully, would you just sit your impatient ass down? Everything's ready."

The group tucks in, gorging themselves on typical picnic fare (burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, etc.). They laugh themselves hoarse listening to a story Sully shares ("Have I ever told you about the time I brought a hooker to church?), while Elena relays a juicy story about the early years behind the scenes on her old show _Uncharted_. Content, Nate looks around at his friends—his _family_ —and smiles, capturing Elena's hand in his under the table.

 _ **viii.**_

"You _absolutely_ could have kept your drink in your mouth," Chloe accuses Charlie, toweling off her hair. She's dressed in some spare clothes from Elena.

"It's insulting enough," Charlie begins, as he helps Nate and Elena set up lawn chairs "when you ask a Brit to celebrate American independence. But it's a hundred times worse when you can't even get a decent cuppa."

"I swear I didn't mean anything by it," Elena promises as she unfolds a particularly difficult chair. She can't stop laughing. "I followed the directions exactly on the mixture—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Charlie interrupts, panic evident in his tone. Over his shoulder, Chloe rolls her eyes so hard, Nate's concerned she might do permanent internal damage. "So there were no actual teabags involved? There was a… _mixture_?"

"Oh, come off it, Charlie," Chloe chastises, quickly braiding her hair to keep it from soaking through her new shirt. "You're being incredibly rude to the barbarians who don't know how to make a proper cup of tea. Also, thanks to your dramatics, my suede jacket is ruined."

"I'll make it up to you, love. I promise. As a matter of fact," Charlie says, sauntering over to her, "I'll start right now."

Chloe giggles as Charlie leans in to kiss her. Nate and Elena allow them their privacy and instead focus their attention on Sully, who has been working on getting the fireworks set up.

"Need a hand, Sully?" Nate calls out to him from across the yard.

Sully brushes him off and calls back, "Nah, I think I got this, Kid. Everyone ready?"

Nate gives him the double thumbs up, before wrangling Chloe and Charlie away from each other to sit in the chairs they set up. Elena sits down next to Chloe, who sits down next to Charlie, who sits down next to Nate.

"We're ready!" Nate calls back, a final time.

Although it's difficult to tell, Nate assumes Sully lights the fuse. Nothing happens for a moment, and then suddenly, the entire pile of fireworks ignites and explodes, knocking Sully back a few feet. An orange cloud, which quickly turns black, follows soon after. In the aftermath, Chloe is the first one to notice.

"Oh, my God, Sullivan is on _fire!_ "

 _ **i.**_

The birth of their first-born is an unplanned, chaotic affair.

Elena's water breaks long before she starts having contractions and certainly well before her due date. Nate misses most of the incident because he has his nose buried in a pregnancy book he got when he first found out she was pregnant. When Elena finally _does_ get his attention, he apologizes profusely, grabs her overnight bag she has packed just for this occasion, and helps her get into the Jeep.

Only, the Jeep doesn't start because _of course_ it doesn't, and it's 5:21 a.m., so nothing is open, and they honestly don't have the time to get the problem fixed. So Nate does the next best thing. He calls Sully.

Sully answers groggily, but as soon as he hears what's happening, he sobers quickly, and promises he'll be over in twenty minutes.

He makes it in twelve.

They make it to the hospital in record time, but when they get there, the woman at the front desk explains that there's something wrong with their insurance. Sully ushers Nate and Elena to go with the nurse, while he selflessly stays out front, chewing the woman out for upsetting his daughter-in-law, and can't she tell she's very pregnant and very emotional? It takes them another two hours to finally get everything smoothed out, and when they finally do, Sully grudgingly thanks the woman and collapses into one of the uncomfortable green chairs in the waiting area and falls asleep.

Meanwhile, Elena finally does have contractions, and they are awful, and they make her say awful things like, "I wish you'd never put this thing inside me," and, "I should have never married you." But they both know she doesn't mean it, and Nate can't help but laugh prematurely at how they'll one day _both_ laugh at the things she's saying.

That infuriates Elena even more, so he stops pretty quickly.

There's a lot of technical jargon and talk about dilation and centimeters, but Nate barely listens. All he knows is that he's there besides Elena, her hand crushing his as she pushes with all her might. And suddenly, out of nothing, there's _something_ , and it's screeching, and it's red and blotchy, and admittedly it's _ugly_. He'll never tell Elena that, though. Not that she would listen, lying there exhausted and eyes fluttering shut.

But then the doctor comes back with the ugly, screeching thing, only, it's cleaned off, and it has Elena's nose. And all at once, Nate is completely consumed with love for this ugly, screeching thing that has Elena's nose. His knees buckle as the doctor places the child in Elena's arm.

"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Drake," he commends, "it's a girl."

"Fisher," Elena automatically responds, but her eyes are transfixed on the baby girl in her arms, much like Nate's are. "It's Elena Fisher, not Drake."

"My apologies," the doctor offers before giving the two of them some privacy.

Neither he, nor Elena ever planned for anything like this, but it's difficult to have any regrets when the outcome is staring at you with what you know are your eyes. Nate holds his hand out, but hesitates when he thinks about how fragile this baby is. As he's about to pull away, the baby reaches out and grabs hold of his index finger. How could he possibly have once thought that this thing—this baby girl; his _daughter_ —was ugly?

"She's beautiful," he lets slip, unable to think of anything sarcastic to say in the moment.

Elena turns to him and smiles "And to think he came from somebody with an ugly mug like you," she teases faintly, and he laughs even though he can feel a tear fall down his cheek.

Abruptly, the door to their left bursts open, and in comes Sully, looking frazzled and disheveled. "…now wait just a damn minute." They overhear him tell the nurse. "That's my kid and my daughter-in-law in there. I need to know that they're okay."

"But Mr. Sullivan," the nurse begins, sounding like she's had this exact conversation with at least seven other people, "you're not allowed to just barge into—"

"It's alright," Nate tells her with a chuckle, wiping at his eyes. "He's with us."

Sully thanks him, clamps a hand on his shoulder, and turns to Elena and the baby. Nate takes a step back and allows Sully to look at her. Even he is speechless.

"He's got your ears," Elena says to Sully with a grin. And even though it's genetically impossible for that to be even remotely true, Sully takes it in stride and puffs out a little.

"What are you going to name her?" Sully asks. Like Nate and Elena, he, too, can't seem to take his eyes off her.

Nate catches Elena's eye before he says anything. For once, he can't read her expression. "Oh, Sully," he starts, "we haven't really thought—"

"Victoria," Elena declares. She knows as soon as she looks at both Nate and Sully that the name couldn't be anything else. "After her grandfather," she explains.

"Well." For the second time, Sully is speechless. "…I'll be go to hell," he exclaims eloquently.


End file.
